Trinity
by Caitlyn Rose
Summary: "We're not kids anymore, Deacon. We can't just go sing a song and damn the rest of it." - Rayna and Deacon, Season 3, Missing and Extended Scenes
1. Chapter 1

She had been doing so well.

_The way things are right now, this is how we're going to need to stay_.

She'd thought of that one in advance - liked the decisiveness of the phrase, yet the passivity, the obliqueness of it too somehow - and in the end she'd delivered it with a level of composure that couldn't have been more at odds with her actual emotional state.

But then, somehow, he was in her space and they were nose to nose. Somehow he was almost crying, and she was too, and they were clinging to one another's hands like they had no other anchor in the world.

Somehow, in a matter of seconds, that happened. And none of Rayna's stupid words could do a damn thing to stop it.

"Just come to The Bluebird, baby, and just _sing_ with me," he murmurs, as she squeezes back the tears like a kid trying desperately to be brave. "Then tell me you're going to marry someone else."

Silent tears roll down her cheeks (another small battle lost), and she lets the words wash over her, lets her mind go blank. He is everywhere now, overwhelming her senses and she knows this feeling; she is drowning in him.

Forehead pressed against his, she breathes him in deeply, and tries, by some magic, to communicate all the things she can't say. A moment later, though, – for it was only ever going to be a moment – she steels herself. Shaking her head, she stumbles backwards to put a few paces of distance between them. Both hands automatically move to shield her eyes, as if in some vain attempt to make everything just go away, but it's no use – there can be no more hiding.

She has to face this now.

"We're not kids anymore, Deacon," she says hoarsely, sounding utterly exhausted all of a sudden. "We can't just go sing a song and damn the rest of it. You can't just come to someone's house on the night of their engagement and _kiss_ them and _propose_ to them."

He says nothing, just stands before her, open and ravaged, and the sight of him feels like it splits her heart open anew.

A muscle quivers in his jaw.

"You kissed me back, you know, Ray…" he says then, quietly.

"What?" she asks, but it's just a reflexive response. She heard him perfectly.

"Last night you… you kissed me back."

Rayna blinks, swallows, feels her heartbeat quickening, because of course she could deny it, but that wouldn't make it any less true.

"Well…yeah!" she blurts out in reply, her voice strangled and desperate now even to her own ears. "This is the thing, isn't it, Deacon? I'm probably _always_ going to kiss you back. And you know that. By now, on some level, I think we both know that. But you don't have to take advantage of it!"

Deacon recoils, a sudden flash of anger in his eyes.

"You think I took advantage of you?" he asks, evidently in total disbelief at such an accusation.

She curses her turn of phrase. "Come on. I didn't mean it like that. You know what I meant."

"Am I taking advantage of you now?" he continues tersely, taking a step towards her.

Rayna holds up both palms as if in surrender - a sign that he has made his point - but he just keeps going undeterred - two more steps, three, until he's right in front of her again.

"How about now, Ray?" he mutters gruffly, leaning down into her, touching his fingertips to her upper arm, and she jolts backwards.

"Don't!" she says, an expression of raw anguish on her face. "Please, I can't" – her voice cracks – "I can't _think_ when you…this is what I mean, Deacon. _This_. Just, please don't."

He pauses for a second, as though weighing his options, then backs off, gives her a little space. It's clear he doesn't think it's much of a solution, though.

"I'm gonna be around, Ray," he warns. "Just about every day I can be – picking up Maddie, dropping her off… Any chance we ever mighta had of cutting our losses is pretty much shot to hell now, don't you think?"

"Yeah, well. Pick ups and drop offs are one thing," Rayna says quietly, eyes downcast. "Teddy and I seem to manage that fine. This – between us – this is something else."

"Yeah," Deacon replies evenly. "It is. And if we both know that, then I guess I don't know what you want me to say here."

"I don't know either," she cries, starting to feel at the end of her rope. "But you're all I can think about, all the time – _again_ – and I want it to just… stop!"

Deacon looks at her intently for a long moment, casting a hand across his stubble. He sighs heavily.

"Do you love me, Rayna?" he asks then, quiet and serious.

She looks up at the ceiling – anywhere, really, to escape his gaze. When he looks at her like that, it always feels like he can see more than she wants him to.

She blinks rapidly. "I just told you," is all she can manage, voice watery and fragile. "...It isn't enough, though, is it? It won't be enough."

His eyes widen, frustrated and impassioned once more, because he knows this part pretty well by now. "It's like I said –"

"No. Deacon," she cuts him off, unable to bear it any more. "You don't understand. I'm not fishing for some big declaration here. I'm not asking you to stand here and tell me all the reasons why you love me. Cause what I wonder," she says shakily, "is how it's _possible_ that you don't hate me. Even a little bit? Someplace deep down that you wish didn't exist, and that you can probably ignore for a while – until every stupid fight we ever have, when you'll remember that I stole 13 years of your kid's life from you. And then _I'll_ remember all the reasons why I thought I had to."

She exhales tremulously, needing to get this out now that she's started. "There's just too much pain, babe. For both of us, whether you admit it or not. Too much pressure. It would cripple us."

"You don't know that," he says obstinately.

"I know our track record," she replies, sounding stronger now somehow – more focussed. "And I know that if we tried, and this did not work, I couldn't get over it again."

She swallows thickly. "_Seriously_. Plus I got two girls who would be crushed – one of 'em in particular."

Deacon looks at her, his expression broken and beseeching. "And what if it _does _work, huh? What if everything we always wanted is right in front of us? Just come to The Bluebird," he tries again, but the fight has gone out of him a little, finally. "Just ...come."

"I can't," Rayna says, and he can see his own pain reflected in her face. "I'm so sorry. Don't wait for me."

He does wait for her, but she doesn't come.

* * *

><p>AN - I plan to start a new series, whereby I'll try and follow along and expand on Season 3. Some weeks I might post an imagined scene based on the promo, other weeks I might wait until after the episode and either do missing or extended scenes. I would like to have some readers, though! So hopefully some of you are interested enough to keep reading and review :)


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: I never thought I was someone who particularly wrote because of reviews, but it turns out maybe I am! Thanks to everyone who left feedback on chapter 1- what follows is my hypothesis based on the promo for 3x02.

* * *

><p>He hadn't expected to be seeing much of her anymore, certainly not on an unplanned basis, but there she is anyway, on his doorstep at 10am.<p>

"What the _hell_, Deacon?" she demands immediately, greetings having apparently been dispensed with altogether. "You told Maddie?"

His jaw clenches involuntarily, his eyes blinking closed for a second. Frankly this is a conversation he could very much live without. And, really, what the hell business of hers is it what he tells his own daughter, or anybody else for that matter?

But then he sees it – how she casts a hand across her pale face quickly, how she glances back agitatedly that black SUV that's just pulling up. Her eyes look dulled, somehow, with faint black circles under them, but he can still read enough to know that she's not just mad. She's confused, too. Anxious. And in fairness to her, according to the great big book of co-parenting, this probably _is_ the sort of thing that deserves some explanation.

He takes a breath. "Why don't you come on in, Rayna."

#

"I guess it just slipped out," he admits, once they're safely inside.

Pacing his living room floor seems to be how they have all their best conversations these days. Lord knows Deacon just can't get enough of 'em.

"It just slipped out," she repeats, one eyebrow quirked, and he knows that tone. All kinds of unimpressed.

They look at each other for a moment, on the verge of a bit of an impasse, and then suddenly it's as though he can see her break; she doesn't want to fight, she's too tired for the Queen of Country sass.

"I know I hurt you," she tells him, the words tumbling out in a gush of emotion. "And I am so sorry for that. I can't even… I keep wondering if I coulda done the whole thing better or... I don't know. But Maddie's a _kid_, Deacon."

He sighs. "I know she is. Look, I told her that I respect your decision. And that _she_ should respect your decision."

"But you _told_ her," Rayna persists, unable to see any way around that basic fact.

"Yeah. I did."

"_Why_?" she asks, because truly she is floored. There is almost literally no conversation she can imagine wanting to have less.

Deacon shrugs. "I didn't plan to. I really didn't. But then, she asked me – pretty much – and I just…I guess I needed her to know that I tried."

She says nothing, and he casts a hand over his face, clicking his tongue against his teeth as he thinks about how to put this.

"See the thing is, Rayna," he tries, "I figure a day's gonna come where I'm going to be telling _her_ to take a chance, and to be brave, and to put herself out there. I don't care if it's about music, or some other job, or love, or _whatever_ – I'm gonna be standing in front of that beautiful girl, as her father, and I'm gonna be telling her that she should go out there and just _get_ whatever it is she wants. That she's _worth_ that."

Rayna bites the inside of her lip, nods almost imperceptibly. But now that he's started, Deacon finds he's not done.

"I mean, my God, Ray, this is her family," he continues, voice thick and impassioned now. "You know? This is _her _life that's been turned upside down now too – _again_. She's fifteen years old, you gotta at least expect she's gonna have some questions about how that all went down. And… _I _just needed her to know that I _tried_."

There's a long pause, the silence is starting to settle around them when Rayna speaks at last.

"Yeah," she says slowly, quietly, the tips of her fingers pressed to her forehead as she starts to pace the room distractedly. "Yeah."

Coming to rest on the sofa, she looks up at him. "I know it's been hard for her," she acknowledges. "Everything's... happened so quickly."

"Doesn't sound much like Daphne's just breezing through the whole thing either, if you're interested," Deacon replies, and it comes out just a bit more flippantly than he'd intended.

"Of _course_ I'm interested," she replies, aghast. "Look, if you want me to say it, then yes… this was sudden. And public. And …probably _not_ the way I would have chosen for things to go down. That's all true. But he's a good man, Deacon," she adds, eyes wide and earnest. "I said 'yes'."

He sits himself down on the chair opposite her, taking his time, leaning forward onto his thighs. "That's what you said," he agrees stoically. "I still don't really know if it's what you meant, but there you go."

Rayna cocks her head, frowns. "You're telling me what I mean now?" she bites back, flipping suddenly into self defence mode.

"Come on," he murmurs. "Whatever else you could say – and there's plenty – I ain't ever been that guy."

She makes no reply, because it's true, of course. Because if she really thinks about it, there has, in her life, probably been no-one more convinced that she deserves to be heard – in every sense – than the boy she met at sixteen.

"I'll tell you what though," he's saying softly, looking across at her. "From where I'm standin'…? You got a number one record, you got a ring the size of Texas, and you look like somebody fucking _died_, Rayna."

And isn't it just like him, really, to call her out with such directness, but with such gentleness too somehow? Rayna isn't really sure whether it's that he's so right, or that he's so quiet - almost tender - about it, but it rankles. Big time.

"Well. You know what, Deacon?" she says hotly, trying to keep the tremble out of her voice. "Luke wants a short engagement. My phone is ringing off the hook every minute of the day – there are paparazzi _literally_ hiding in the bushes outside my house. And now, thanks to you," she adds, tone rising in mock joviality, "I have two daughters who seem to have set up camp in their bedrooms for the foreseeable future. So, you know, now that you mention it? Actually, _yes_, that _has_ been all a little bit stressful to deal with."

She swallows, feeling kind of shaky now that she's finished, now that all she can hear is the silence. She's not sure what's wrong with her, but inside, underneath, she seems to be feeling kind of shaky all the time these days.

Deacon sighs.

"I'm sorry about that, Rayna. And I'm sorry I didn't give you the heads up about what I said to Maddie right away. But to be honest with you, I'm _not_ really sorry that I told her. And I can't take any responsibility for Daphne. I saw her little face on the side of that stage at LP Field, though, so… yeah. Guess that might be something for you to… talk about or…whatever you gotta do."

He shrugs helplessly, like he's not really sure what else he can say, and Rayna feels utterly, utterly helpless too when she realises; they seem to be done here.


	3. Chapter 3

Of course, it's unbelievably hypocritical, given what a performance she's making - in private as well as in public - of them all being one big happy family. She knows that. And if anyone ever asked, she would deny it both strenuously and convincingly.

But the truth is, she doesn't love Luke's kids.

He's probably a much better person, certainly the better step-parent, because he talks unconcernedly of 'their' kids now, he tells her loftily that he loves Maddie and Daphne like they're his own.

And she can smile vaguely, or move swiftly on to something else, but she can't say the same. Because honestly, she _doesn't_ love Sage and Colt like they're her own, and she knows she never will.

It's not that she resents their existence, or their time with their father; she has zero interest in playing the wicked stepmother. She'd like them to be happy.

But none of that, when all's said and done, comes anywhere close to displacing what seems to Rayna such an altogether obvious truth. _Her_ children are her children.

And frankly - if she's being really _really_ honest - his children are starting to seem like a bad influence.

#

A hundred underage teenagers treating her family room like a dive bar is a prime example. Of course Maddie has to take responsibility, and Rayna's going to make damn sure she does. But something tells her that Colt and his charms had more than a little bit to do with how this all went down.

It's obvious to everyone that Luke isn't overly concerned - the whole thing is no more than adolescent hijinks to him, easily fixed by a professional cleaning service and a few quick clicks of online shopping. He can obviously read the room, though, because he takes himself off for a man-to-man talk with his son, and Rayna breathes a sigh of relief.

One down.

Two remain, and when Deacon suggests that Maddie come and spend the night at his place, she finds she can't refuse. The two of them have so little time together anyway that it seems wrong to make it dependant on Maddie's good behaviour. If Luke - even Teddy - aren't to be punishments, then surely, she reasons, Deacon can't be a reward.

She goes upstairs to make sure Daphne's settled in bed and, padding wearily back down the stairs, she's surprised to see that Teddy's still there on the couch, arm draped across the back of it. She's even more surprised to note the beer he's popped open; it's certainly not hers and she dreads to think where it's come from.

But then, it has been a long ass day. And there have to be some benefits to being the (unwitting) hostess. Turning to the mass of debris left on her kitchen island, she finds an unopened bottle, and sits herself down.

#

It's been a while since she and Teddy have talked - really talked - and she finds it strangely comforting. They'd spent so many evenings this way, in this room, discussing every new detail of the girls' development.

Her engagement has been rough on them, Teddy says – just so sudden - and the urge to mention how happy he was to marry his mistress in just a few short weeks takes some suppressing. She manages it, though, because deep down she knows; it doesn't make what he's telling her any less true.

On a practical level at least, the nanny should help, they agree, maybe _too_ hopefully. They'll interview candidates the next time she's home for any decent length of time. It's all very civilised, pleasant even, and Rayna remembers that they were good at this part - parenting together. It had probably always been what they were best at, actually.

"I don't know," she sighs, maybe a half hour later. They've finished their beers now, they're wrapping up, she thinks. "I guess this is just kinda new, huh? Having a teenager. But hopefully Luke is gonna talk some sense into Colt as well tonight, and this'll just be a one time thing."

"Hopefully," Teddy replies, and there's a pause that – for the first time this evening – isn't entirely comfortable.

"So, uh... no Deacon, then?" he ventures a minute later, and Rayna frowns, confused.

"He was just here. You saw him."

"No, I mean..." Teddy shifts again a little uneasily. "_You_ and Deacon."

"Oh." Rayna says, taken aback. "…No."

Teddy nods, and the silence rests between them another a moment before he speaks again.

"You know it's funny, Rayna," he murmurs, a rueful half-smile on his face, "but in a weird way, I almost _wanted_ it to be him. Bet you never thought you'd hear me say that, huh?"

She raises an eyebrow. "I sure didn't."

He lets out a laugh, short and staccato. "Me neither. But suddenly two dads in the mix is looking a hell of a lot better than three. And, I don't know. I guess it's kind of like, if our marriage had to fail – if it was _always_ going to fail – then at least there should be something to show for that. Does that make any sense?"

It does, actually. But she works hard not to show it. She reverts to script.

"Look, Teddy," she says earnestly. "I know I told you this a million times, but maybe you can finally _hear_ me now. I got no reason to lie anymore. Nothing ever happened between me and Deacon while you and I were married."

He nods, the very picture of calm. "I believe that. If we're talking physically, at least. And don't misunderstand me, Rayna, I know we had problems that had to do with nobody but us. But when you get right down to basics… a big part of it was Deacon. I mean, it's like you said," - he shrugs - "why lie at this point? A big part of it was Deacon."

She just looks at him, her tongue darting out to wet her lips.

There's dead, weighted silence while they both wonder what her answer will be, and she closes her eyes for a second.

"Yeah," she says then, slowly, quietly, the admission she never ever thought she'd hear herself make.

For his part, Teddy appears entirely unsurprised by it. "Guess I had gotten to figuring there was just something about you two," he continues pragmatically. "And ok, maybe I couldn't compete, but no-one else could, you know? Except now – apparently," he smirks, "- someone else _can_. I gotta say, Rayna, if my ego was fragile to begin with, that was kind of a kicker."

He seems - bizarrely - to be joking, so Rayna smiles weakly on cue. There'll be time later, she thinks vaguely, to process all this.

Maybe she's been quiet too long, though, because Teddy seems to be speaking again now. "You really think it's going to be different with Luke?" he's asking softly, and there's nothing accusatory in his tone, nothing bitter or mean. It actually sounds as though he's genuinely curious.

Rayna exhales loudly. "I don't know, Teddy. I mean how does anybody ever really know, I guess."

He doesn't reply, and she swallows. She's so unprepared, so entirely ill-equipped for this conversion that she can't quite believe it

"I wouldn't want you to feel like...oh, Luke has something that you didn't have, or whatever, though," she tries clumsily, because she feels she has it say _something_. "It's not like that. It's more like... like things are different now between me and _Deacon_, I guess."

Teddy just laughs grimly. "Seems to me that things have been different between you and Deacon so many times, Rayna. Right up until they're just exactly same again."

#

She's still reeling when she arrives at the airport at 5.30 the next morning, two private jets waiting on the runway, one for her and the other for Deacon and Luke.

It's never a fun trio, and she's feeling particularly unfit for it this morning.

"It really _was_ good of you to come," she says quietly to Deacon, pulling him aside a little, aware of Luke's eyes on them. "I appreciate it."

He shakes his head. "It wasn't a favour, Rayna," he replies, not angrily but almost amused, somehow, like there's something she's just not getting. "She's my daughter."

Rayna nods, immediately feeling small. She's handling this all so badly - again - and she can't ever seem to learn. "Well, I know she was real happy to see you, so..."

Deacon just gives her a small, perfunctory smile, and she shifts awkwardly, unsure how to extricate herself.

"It kills me to leave her," he adds then, quietly, as if it's a secret he just can't help revealing.

"I know," she says, her voice thick and intense, because she really does know. "It's ...the hardest thing. Being away."

They look at each other, and it's just a tiny, silent moment of understanding - but it feels like such a relief somehow that it's enough to bring tears to her eyes. She blinks them back furiously. Deacon's staring past her, gritting his teeth, probably looking to all the world like he's fuming, but she knows; he's just trying to keep it together, too.

"She's gonna be alright though," he mutters gruffly. "Guess it's just hard figuring out where you fit at her age. Reckon after that party the other week, though, and now this one...she's startin' to see where maybe she doesn't actually _wanna_ fit."

"Yeah," Rayna says, because that's really all she can say. On the inside, she's confused, aghast. What other party? Had there been another party? When was this? Why didn't she know about it? _Why didn't she know about it?_

"It's good she has Scarlett as well, I think," Deacon's continuing, undeterred. "I know she can talk to us, and Teddy, but sometimes it's probably good to have somebody who isn't your parent, you know?"

"...Definitely," is all Rayna can manage, her mouth all of a sudden dry as cardboard. "Yeah."

She hadn't been aware Maddie and Scarlett had ever exchanged more than a few sentences.

Deacon nods, suddenly business-like, entirely unaware of the silent crisis he's provoked in her. He glances pointedly over at Luke, who's hovering a few feet away and doing less and less to hide his impatience. "I'll let y'all say your goodbyes."

And then, as quickly as that, he's gone, striding towards the plane in the early morning light.

Rayna lets Luke sweep her up in a hug, and watches him go.

#

It's another two months before she's back in Nashville again – on an official break this time – and the schedulers have arranged for Luke to have a short hiatus too.

Everything just got a little intense for a while there, she tells herself; she was tired and missing home, and all kinds of things got blown out of proportion.

She redoubles her efforts on the family front. Between expeditions and movie nights and pancake breakfasts, it's a constant onslaught of Wheeler/Jaymes/Conrad fun.

And it doesn't go badly, she supposes. The kids do seem to be getting along better. But Maddie's hanging off Colt's every word in a way that doesn't seem quite sisterly. And Rayna's heart sinks to see the change in Daphne – her sweet Daphne, who tells her now that Sage gets $20 allowance a week, _plus extra_ for chores. And Sage thinks glow-in-the-dark bowling is for babies.

Still, Rayna shows a reporter – a stranger – around their happy home, and smiles, and thinks all the while about that weekend she was in Nashville back in September. It was just her and the girls, and - between setting up the Highway 65 offices, and trying on wedding dresses, and courting Sadie Stone - she'd had a million things to do.

Breakfasts were three quick bowls of cereal, not the culinary extravaganzas she and Luke are serving up these days, but Rayna seems to remember feeling a lot freer, somehow. A lot less strained.

A clean slate, that's what she'd told Deacon she was getting, wasn't it?

It doesn't feel so much like that now.

It just feels like a whole new set of baggage.


	4. Chapter 4

By 7pm, the night after that god-awful conversation with Brett, Luke has left to catch a flight back to Europe.

By 8pm, Maddie and Daphne are safely returned to Teddy's place – no sense in disturbing them at the crack of dawn the next morning, not when they have school to go to.

And perhaps when Juliette rings the doorbell, her mood seemingly much improved from yesterday, the younger woman has business to discuss. Perhaps she's seeking guidance from the president and CEO of her record label, or maybe even artistic input from the childhood-idol turned kind-of-friend.

_None_ of that is what she gets. Not that night.

Because by 9pm, Rayna is alone, exhausted, and – very, very unwisely, given her early morning travel plans and fragile emotional state – three glasses into a bottle of red.

* * *

><p>By 10pm, she's not sure how it's happened, but she's sitting at her kitchen island, elbows on the counter and head in her hands.<p>

"Do you know how many people were in that arena, Juliette?" she's asking, her voice thick and slow and southern. "The night Luke proposed."

"How many?" Juliette replies, much more gamely than could reasonably be expected of a sober, pregnant person who's already had an hour of less than sensible conversation.

"Just take a guess."

She shrugs. "Sixty thousand?"

"Seventy two thousand," Rayna corrects sagely, as though this number is in some way meaningful. "Seventy two thousand people."

Juliette makes what she hopes is a surprised, interested sort of face.

"That's…" she begins, not totally sure where she's going.

"That's a fucking lot of people, is what that is," Rayna fills in for her, snorting with harsh laughter.

Juliette pauses, proceeds with caution. "Had you guys talked about marriage before that, or…"

"Nope!" Rayna says blithely, taking another gulp her wine.

"You know, it's kinda funny," she adds a few minutes later, as though the thought has only just occurred to her, and she really is intrigued by it. "I spent over a decade with one man, people asking me every day, 'when are you guys getting married, when are y'all gonna make it official?' – all that. And I _thought _about it, you know? Like, how I would want to do it, and where and… whatever."

"And then after all that," – she laughs again, tops up her glass – "I end up having not one but _two_ weddings that even _I_ didn't really see coming, never mind anybody else!"

Juliette's not quite seeing the hilarity of the situation, and – not for the first time in the evening – she isn't entirely sure what's expected of her. It really would be so much easier if she could just start downing the Merlot as well.

She's saved the trouble of figuring out a next move, though, by Rayna slapping the counter in sudden merriment, almost spitting out her wine in the process.

"Hey!" she giggles. "'Member the time you married that basketball player?"

"Football player," Juliette supplies benignly.

"What?"

"He was a football player."

"Right, football player, that's what I said."

Rayna frowns in bewilderment, tilts her head to the side. "Did you kinda know that was probably gonna all turn to shit in the end?"

Juliette laughs – she can't help herself. "I don't know," she says honestly. "Maybe a little bit. I guess I just wanted to believe it could all work out, you know?"

Rayna nods, her expression becoming a little hazy. As it happens, she _does_ know.

"You gotta remember, though," Juliette continues evenly – and some part of Rayna is aware enough to be impressed by this new, self-possessed Miss Barnes - "I didn't even really know what I was looking for. It was before Avery, so I had no idea, really, of what it was supposed to feel like."

Juliette pauses, looks straight at the older woman. "But _you_ do," she says softly. "Don't you, Rayna?"

Rayna raises an eyebrow, her gaze shifting down to the counter as she takes a slow sip at her wine.

"Yep" - she meets Juliette's eyes eventually, still some attempt at casualness - "I do."

Her lips tug upwards into a wry half smile, and she drains the rest of her glass, laughing for no reason.

It's one of the saddest sounds Juliette has ever heard.


	5. Chapter 5

_I'm going out on a limb and posting this in advance of the episode, my hypothesis for a missing scene after 2x08_

* * *

><p>The night of the CMAs, he gets a call from her just before 1am.<p>

"Hey," she says, and she sounds a little raspy – 6 hours of chit chat will do that to you, he guesses. "I thought you'd still be up."

"You were right. Big night, huh? I saw it on tv – congratulations," he says warmly.

On the other end of the line, Rayna sinks down into her bed a little bit, feels her body relax. Tonight, it soothes her, somehow, just to hear his voice; to realize that there's nothing underneath his kind words, no sliver of jealously or ugliness to mar them. Maybe she'd never quite realized what a gift that was, before.

"Thank you," she replies graciously. "Although I really just called to thank _you_. There's no way I could have done _This Time_ without you. I know I said it on stage, but I wanted to say it in person – or kind of in person, at least," she amends. "That award really _is_ half yours."

Deacon smiles. "Well, I appreciate that. And hey, it sounds like you got awards to spare, huh?" he asks teasingly.

She just laughs, sounding hoarse and tired and so beautiful to him.

"There ain't nobody deserves 'em more, Ray," he continues softly. "Every single one of 'em."

Rayna pauses. Of course, she's had a dozen bouquets delivered, and received all kinds of gushing compliments tonight. But somehow this simple acknowledgement, unreservedly offered and from somebody who actually knows her, feels like what she's been waiting all night for.

"You really think so?" she can't help asking, her voice sounding timid even to her own ears.

Why on this, of all nights, she should be feeling so unsure of herself is the damndest thing.

"I really do," he says matter-of-factly. "So you got more calls to make tonight?"

He remembers hanging out with her in bed after awards shows, kissing her shoulder and tracing shapes on her stomach as she swatted him away half-heartedly and tried to make her way quickly through the list of people she wanted to thank.

It sickens him suddenly to think of Wheeler doing the same thing now.

"Nope," Rayna answers. "Saved the best 'til last, you know?"

He laughs for her benefit, but there's no feeling in it. "Of course. Well, I'll let you go anyway, I'm sure you got some celebrating you want to be getting on with."

"Not really," she admits. "The girls aren't here obviously so… I'm alone tonight."

Deacon raises an eyebrow. And he hates himself for it but he can't resist asking.

"No Luke?"

"No, he went back out to his ranch after the awards," Rayna says lightly.

"Right." He replies baldly, just to fill the silence. As though it is perfectly understandable that, on one of the most glittering nights of her career, Rayna's fiancé has chosen to hightail it 50 miles away.

He won't ask why. He _won't._

"Actually, Deacon," Rayna begins then, sounding like she's switching tack a little. "Now that I'm talking to you, I guess I should probably tell you. There's going to be an article coming out - in Rolling Stone magazine."

"O-_kay_," he answers trepidatiously, as thought he's waiting for the kicker.

"The reporter was going to write about Maddie and _Colt_ and that whole _debacle_," she tries to explain, not even bothering to conceal the tightness in her voice. She and Deacon had actually been on the same page in terms of their reception to that particular development.

"And anyway," she continues, feeling herself getting anxious, "the only way he wouldn't was if I talked about you. And – you know – _us_. And so…that's what I did," she finishes quietly, and there's a few long seconds of silence on the telephone line.

"Well alright then," Deacon says simply. "If it's what you had to do."

He'd trade his privacy for Maddie's any day.

"Yeah," she replies softly.

Silence settles between them again until – when it seems just about clear she isn't going to volunteer the information – he asks the obvious.

"What'd you tell them, Ray?"

Rayna feels herself physically tense. "Uhh….you know what, honestly, I don't even know what they'll use," she says vaguely. "It was a long interview. The reporter asked about me and you, and us breaking up and …all that. I think he might have caught me at kind of a weak moment, actually, because I was just so tired of all the bullshit and…anyway, I guess you can read it," she trails off, feeling suddenly like she is veering into dangerous territory. "Or maybe it'd be better if you didn't, I mean I don't know. I just thought I should tell you."

Deacon isn't sure how respond. "Thanks, I guess," is all he can come up with. He doubts that whatever she has said about him, about his drinking or his many other failings, is much worse than what's already out there in print. It categorically cannot be worse that what he knows himself to be true.

But maybe he's a glutton for punishment, because a week later, he picks up a copy of Rolling Stone.

_It takes some prodding before Jaymes confirms the much rumored fact that she and Claybourne had reunited last year – and this time for keeps – until the booze-fuelled car crash that nearly took the superstar's life. After 14 years of sobriety, Claybourne's sudden relapse, however brief, appears to have spelled the end for the pair once and for all. Without it, though, does she think they would finally have been able to give their fans that long-awaited happy ending?_

"_I certainly hoped that would be the case," she says carefully. "Although there were other issues too. Some things are hard to forgive."_

"_I'm talking about myself there, by the way," she clarifies hurriedly, just seconds later, suddenly concerned she may have been too vague for her own good. "The accident and all that happened and, you know, we probably don't need to go into it all again, but I have kids to think about and so…yeah, I guess that did kind of put a halt to things. But otherwise?" she says, her voice rising. "If Deacon and I had stayed together? _I_ would have been the lucky one."_

_Jaymes blinks rapidly, swallows, and it feels like the first time all weekend that she is finally giving me a glimpse behind the mask. _

"_Let's just be real clear about that," she repeats quietly. "I would have been the lucky one."_

_It begs the question, then, with the celebrity wedding of the year – perhaps the decade – on the horizon, is Jaymes still holding a torch for her first love?_

"_Well, you know, there's a lot of factors that go into making two people right for each other – or not – at a particular time," she demurs, slipping easily back into her practiced PR mode. We both know it's not really an answer._

_She shrugs, tossing back those famous locks before turning to face me, a new clarity in her unflinching gaze._

"_Look," she says resolutely. "It's just as simple as this. Deacon Claybourne has been my family since I was 16 years old. He's the father of my child – he's a wonderful father. And I'm going to love him 'til the day I die."_

Hovering at a newstand on Jefferson Street, Deacon tosses the magazine aside. He can't read any more.


	6. Chapter 6

Pre 3x10, a little continuation of the last episode. Because I always want more.

* * *

><p>"I'm getting married in two weeks. We've got to face the truth," she hears herself say, and it sounds so cold, even to her own ears. "I've moved on. You gotta move on too."<p>

She fidgets frantically with her hands, and tries to deaden her mind, and barely even recognizes herself as she walks away.

#

"You realize you came to _my_ house tonight, Rayna," he calls after her, his voice rising loftily. "I mean, you get that, right? You're the one that's called _me_ at least fifteen times in the last twenty four hours. And I gotta say," he adds with a drawl, "if this is you apologizing, you pretty much suck at it."

Rayna stops, turns on her heel. "Do you _have_ to make this _so_ hard?" she asks rhetorically, her voice tight with irritation.

"_I'm_ making things hard," he echoes, not bothering to hide his disbelief even slightly.

"Yes," she hisses, walking back up towards him, all too aware that he has neighbours. Nosy ones, potentially, with access to the internet. "I had to make a decision – I made it. I thought it would be the best thing for everyone. And I explained that to you. This is not news, Deacon. We can't keep having this same conversation, you can't keep saying all this stuff." She pauses for breath, her voice fading almost to nothing as her jaw clenches. "It's _killing_ me."

He shrugs, eyes wide and searching. "So why are you here, Ray?" he implores. "What, you just wanted to talk some more about the article? You already know how I feel about that, I told you this afternoon."

"Well you were obviously upset," she returns. "_I_ was upset. Is that really so hard to believe? That maybe I don't want you to think I just whored out our relationship for kicks? Is it so hard to believe I wanted to try and make things better between us?"

He says nothing.

She says nothing.

They look at each other.

Rayna exhales heavily, feeling the anger drain from her a little. It has always been this way with the two of them – their fights a rapidfire series of challenge and surrender, a blazing burn that seems to ignite and fizzle out with equal speed.

"We were friends before we were anything else, Deacon," she offers then, her tone gentler. "And we were friends after - the past 15 years, we've been friends. That was _important_ to me," she admits, a sudden rush of intensity in her expression. "And I know things have been so hard lately. But, still. It'd be nice to think that maybe, someday, we could get back to how we were."

Deacon seems stunned for a nanosecond before he laughs mirthlessly, casting a hand through his hair, his eyes darting around quickly as if to ensure they don't have company. He's aware of his neighbors, too.

He sighs lightly, and Rayna feels a little like an especially slow journalist he's trying hard to be patient with.

"You see that spot right there," he says - and it's casual, just like he's telling her some fact about one of his guitars, he's not trying to seduce her. Still, as his fingers ghost across the skin behind her earlobe - that particular three centimetre radius that only he has ever found - she feels it in her whole body, shivering involuntarily.

And it's one of those times – another one - where clearly she should just be getting in her car and going the hell home now. She shouldn't even be interested in the end of his sentence. Except that she _is_. Standing in the semi-darkness, watching intently as his eyes flicker, his lips part, Rayna finds that she really is.

"I don't think there was one single day that we were _friends_," he continues softly, "that I didn't think about kissing you there. And you know what? If I had ever been brave enough to do it, I don't know if there was a single day you would have stopped me. The friends thing," – he says, with that absolute confidence he seems to have when it comes to the two of them - "was a farce, Rayna. Everyone could see that but us."

She shakes her head.

"That's not true," she says stubbornly, even though she feels like she's gasping, like the air has been sucked from her lungs. "You make it sound like it was all about...sex," – she adds shakily – "and it wasn't. We talked, we had music - we were friends. We _were_. And I miss that. _More_ than the ...other stuff."

She swallows, breaking his gaze and casting her eyes downward. She feels foolish all of a sudden, like a sixteen year old girl who's blushed and stuttered and still managed to give too much away.

Deacon's eyes narrow.

"You know what I think you miss, Rayna?" He ventures slowly after a minute. "I think you miss being able to look at someone who makes you feel like you're more - like you _could be more_ - than the face on some billboard advertising a jeep. Was it a jeep?" He wonders aloud, apparently more to himself than anything else. "I don't know. Whatever."

"You don't want me to be your friend," he says simply, no viciousness in his tone at all. "You want me to stand here and just tell you that it's all worth it, and everything's great with me, and forget about the article, and your house doesn't look like a fucking carnival right now."

He shrugs. "Well I'm sorry, Ray. I love you completely. With everything I got. And it's like I said, that's just a fact - there ain't nothing bad you could do that's gonna be enough to change it. But I ain't ever been afraid to tell you the truth."

"So, what, you think I'm a sell out?" She fires back, with much more bravado than she actually feels. Because the truth is, he has always been her sounding board, her moral barometer.

The truth is, when he'd walked into her film-set-cum-family-room yesterday, she could have fallen into a hole in the ground with embarrassment.

"Right now? Yeah. Reckon I do," he answers quietly.

"But hell, I guess it doesn't really matter what I think, right, Rayna? And you shouldn't care."

He looks blankly at her for a beat. "Enjoy Australia."


End file.
